Transitions
by BedXxXHead
Summary: A pandemic occurs when a new virus begins turning people into volatile, mutilated beings terrified of the dark. When there is no defence against this virus all there is left to do is survive. A story about survival, at any cost.


**AN: Hey there guys *taps mic***

**So this here is my first story that I'm publishing. All the major plot lines are mapped out, now all that needs to happen is the writing. Hope you guys enjoy, and if you feel like letting me know what you thought, then feel free.**

Transitions

The smell of tobacco and sex hung in the air.

"You will be careful getting home, won't you?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure you don't want a lift?" A masculine sigh, answered only with a sardonic rising of a dark eyebrow and a feminine huff of annoyance. It was routine however, and to some extent, Bella knew he had to alleviate his guilt by pretending he cared. He never offered for her to stay though.

The rough sound of fabric passing through metal filled the awkwardly palpable silence as Bella finished lacing her boots in a well-practiced and meticulous manner. She stood, grabbing a necklace- a simple piece of rope with a bundle of keys attached to it, undecorated- and looping over her head to rest on her bony collar bone. The exposed skin was neither darkened by the sun nor ethereally pale, but instead it pertained a rather silvery reflection to it, marred only by a small smattering of freckles across her face and shoulders.

"Need these?" The question was playful, provocative. Anything to get some kind of reaction. He always tested her this way, whether in the classroom or in his bed. It was trying on her nerves somewhat. He held aloft her underwear, a simple black cotton pair, unadorned with lace or decorations. Bella shrugged, unaffected.

"Keep them," She muttered, her voice low and coarse; she already knew he had them. It wasn't a seductive voice that could lure unsuspecting men into bed with but a few words, but at the same time it was not unattractive either. The man lying shamelessly naked on the bed beside her as she clothed herself was a man of rugged good looks. His stubble and hardened features gave him a timeless look, and his age was only really hinted at by the grey that shot through his hair like lightning on a dark night. To his friends, he was known as Jake. To Bella, he was only referred to as Mister Black or more commonly, as Sir, despite his constant appeals for her to address him by his first name.

He pondered the young girl in front of him, tapping the wooden frame of his bed as his arm hung limply off of the side of the bed. The golden ring on his finger made a metallic clang that resonated through the room. There was something irrevocably wrong about the way her body looked, or at least to a man of his age. His normal preferences were voluptuous and shapely women, admittedly with small waist lines, but that was a product of his upbringing. Looking at the woman in front of him though, he could not deny that there was something outspokenly attractive about her, and it wasn't that her body screamed fragile. It was quite the opposite- the skeletal frame spoke volumes about the control Bella had over herself, it portrayed strength if nothing else. Her face held the same dilemma, caught somewhere in between the realms of attractive and strange; the features appeared at odds with each other: A wide, soft mouth, too wide for her face, contrasted with a sharp jaw line; almond shaped eyes with a small but noticeably straight nose. It was a harsh look, but not unpleasant to look at.

His hand, covered with a light smattering of dark hair, drifted affectionately to caress her jean clad thigh. Bella looked at him, stood clothed from the waist down only.

"What?" She queried, not harshly, but also not in a warm tone. Her long-fingered hands pulled a loose cream top over her, pert breasts barely pressing against the surface, small as they were. He did not answer straight away.

"How do you feel about me? About _us_?" He asked, stubbing out the last of a burnt out, but not smoked cigarette. Bella scoffed at the word 'us'.

"I'm serious," he added in a stern tone that caused Bella to pause and think. She sidetracked him instead.

"What would you do, should I die?" She asked, looking down on him and standing in an awkward, sloped manner. It was this slouching stance, coupled with her refusal to make eye contact and silent manner that at first made Mr. Black assume she was slow. It was only after having called on her in class, thinking her unprepared, that he had begun to learn that she was quite the opposite.

"If you died, I would want to die too." It was a declaration; there was no real feeling behind it. His light cough filled the air.

"Okay." She nodded, feeling no more reassured, but not needing to be at the same time.

"Okay?" He asked sceptically. Bella nodded, lighting up another cigarette. He appeared deflated, displeased. She tutted at his expectancy. In her own way, she supposed she cared. There was a reason she continued to return to his bed, long after it had ceased to be considered a passing whim.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Sir." She murmured, sounding slightly forlorn about leaving, mainly for his sake however. The door closed, and Jacob finally let loose a coughing fit that he had been repressing over the last three hours. He lay back in his bed, listening to her receding footsteps as best he could through his coughing, before he heard the front door close delicately. His wife would not be home for a few hours yet. He did not know where she was; probably participating in the same activities as he himself had been a mere hour ago.

* * *

The old, slow twirling fan located on the ceiling in the centre of the room did little more than dispel the dust that had gathered atop its rusty blades as it did a poor job of spinning round and round again, akin to a dog endlessly chasing its tail. One rotation after another, the swish of the slight movement of the air. Bella counted each revolving movement just as methodically and surely as the fan wound its way in a circle. The only source of light in the miniature room was the blinding glare of a laptop, and that which escaped underneath the cracks in the door from the corridor outside. The laptop, which sat on the floor in front of her, was of an unexpected superior quality to most, though it looked in a state of disrepair.

A pair of feet shadowed under the door, deliberating. Bella, who had not a second ago sat cross legged and hunchbacked on the floor investigating program after program on the fluorescent screen, quietly but efficiently closed the laptop off and slid it silently underneath the single mattress which lay unadorned by a bed frame. Bella heaved herself on top of the mattress in what seemed like a simultaneous movement, and barely a fraction of a second later, the door cracked open. The hinges made an inhuman squeal of a grinding sound, rust and corrosion making them stiff. A large, portly silhouette of a man stood, blocking out the vast majority of light coming in from the derelict hallway.

"I know you're awake." A slur, a meaningless monotone voice.

"Okay." An equally expressionless answer.

"You should get some sleep." The voice reasoned.

"I'm not tired." Her voice was a statement of fact, not the petulant whine of a child. He sighed.

"I'm sorry," It was pleading. Bella turned away from him, facing the wall, eyes the colour of darkened honey closed off to the world behind heavy lids. Footsteps retreated into the hallway and the door closed, the screaming hinges protesting just as badly swinging the other way. Bella could hear a hacking bark on the other side of the door. She did not retrieve her laptop from under the mattress. The air in her room had the lingering stench of alcohol, dragged in by her father, and her hands played with the slightly sticky wall by the side of her mattress. There was a stain there, slightly darker than the beige wall paper around it. It too smelled of alcohol and she knew immediately without a doubt that he had been in here without her permission. Turning onto her back and staring up once more at the rotation of the blades, Bella wrung her hands in irritation. There was anger at the pit of her stomach, but she could not act upon it. Bony fingers trailed down a ridged stomach, into the loose waist band of her jeans. The hand ghosted over jagged hip bones to rest between her thighs. Gliding over the smooth skin on the inside of her legs, Bella's hands found purchase, steadily warming from their state of perpetual cold.

* * *

Old polka music faded in and out of the white paint encrusted window. The gauzy white curtains on either side billowed around a shirtless figure with wild abandon. Edward stood staring at the city below him. New Orleans certainly took no prisoners. Even as he watched, a prostitute dressed in sparkling silver was slapped around by her pimp. He slipped a cigarette between his lips, pushing his thickly framed glasses up the bridge of his nose.

Edward was a man of rugged countenance, around thirty-five years of age though he would err a few years either side depending on the circumstances. He swiftly covered up his body, the sound of fabric sliding on top of fabric barely audible in the room filled with the ambiance of the city. The metallic jingle of his belt buckle betrayed him.

"Mmmm… Dean?" A throaty rumble came from the bed. Edward sat back down, caressing the dark satin black thigh on the bed. He felt a certain amount of titillation that she had believed his false name.

"Surething, babygirl, whatisit?" His nerves forced him to speak in short sharp bursts, phrases became mere words. Couple with an almost unnoticeable nervous tick (he pushed his glasses up almost infinitesimal amount of times) Edward was a bundle of nerves.

"You ain't stayin'?" The woman murmured. Edward could barely even recall her name. She didn't know his either, so he would call it an even trade. He jumped up.

"Sorry baby girl, but alas some of us have work in the morning." This made the girl turn. She eyed him apprehensively.

"Thought you didn't have to work until late tomorrow." She stated, a hysterical anger in her voice that made Edward's teeth grind together. He pushed up his frames once more and sighed.

"Must've made a mistake,"

"Like hell you did, Dean." A small saliva trail flew from her mouth. He hadn't noticed her sniffling before now, nor the intermittent sneezing.

"What the fuck's wrong with you? Clean yourself up." Producing a pack of Kleenex, he through the pack at her feet.

"What's wrong with me? You ain't a nice guy, Dean. You get the fuck outta my house!" She tossed his phone across the room. It hit the wall and shattered, the front half clinging onto the back through a series of wires. He shrugged, grabbing his bag and sidling out of the room.

As he flung the door open three stories down, the autumnal smells of the city hit him. A mix between overly ripened fruit and pollution.

"Dean, wait!"

He didn't look back up, already stashing away the memories of the night in his brain. Instead he hailed a cab and struck up a conversation with the Mexican man in the front. Edward was already laughing.

* * *

Muck and grime were thick in the air the next morning as Edward strolled through the door of his classroom. He was balancing a piping hot cup of coffee on top of a stack of books in one hand, juggling a set of folders in the other. Carefully depositing all but the coffee onto his desk, Edward practically twitched with a mixture of exhaustion and caffeine. He wrote in huge scrawling letters: "situation ethics" on the board.

Turning to face the horde of awaiting faces, it was almost as though he had only just noticed he was not alone. A hush had fallen over the class, though it was not brought on by his presence.

"Sorry I'm late today, we should get a prompt start if we're going to get all of our lesson work done. Everybody pair up." Nobody moved.

"C'mon guys, I know it's a Monday morning but you guys need to wake up." A hand rose in the air.

"What seems to be the problem, Noah?"

"Um, Sir, Bella's fallen asleep again."

Edward sighed, his gaze softening. He ran his hands over his faced before pushing his glasses up. When he walked over to her, he had every intention of waking her up. Instead, he pulled the blind beside her down, shielding her from the sun, and walked back to the front of the class.

"Let her sleep." He murmured, watching her with furrowed eyebrows.

* * *

Thump. Bella awoke. Thump. She winced. Thump. The pain in her head just would not go away. She needed more sleep.

"Ah, Bella." She shook her head, disbelieving that she had fallen asleep. Her hands clutched at her desk, suddenly worried. Papers crumpled in her hands.

"Careful now, that's the work you missed. I expect you to catch up with all of it."

Bella nodded, refusing to meet his eyes. An awkward tension between the two arose. He was waiting for her to apologise. She would never lower herself to that. A sigh came from the man in front of her.

"Honestly I don't care what you get up to on your weekends, Bella. I will have to file a report if you fall asleep in my class again. I'd hate to see you in detention."

If he was waiting for her to explain herself, Bella didn't notice. She nodded, shuffling her papers and sliding them into her satchel.

"Can I have your word?"

"My word?" She was confused, had already forgotten

"That you won't fall asleep again, you're already behind."

"Yes." Her hand was already on the door handle, ready to leave.

"Yes?" He wanted more from her, some indication of why she couldn't seem to stay awake.

She didn't deem him with another answer, sick of his prying. As she stepped out into the hallways, the presence of sickness pressed down on her. Everybody seemed to be lurching one way or another, bumping into her. She flinched at any contact they made, not wanting to be touched by any of them. Shivering in her oversized army coat, she didn't even notice the eyes following her as she passed into a less crowded hall way and knocked on Mister Black's room. Nor did she see these eyes narrow as a pair of arms pulled her into the room by her hips.

* * *

**So there we have it, the first chapter. They will probably vary in length, most will be longer. I'll try to update once every two weeks if not more often. Oh, I am currently Beta-less, so please excuse the minor flaws I'm sure there are. I hope you enjoyed!**


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